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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26958535">The Way Back</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaps55/pseuds/swaps55'>swaps55</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Opus - The Multiverse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mass Effect Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Biotics (Mass Effect), M/M, Mutual Pining, Reconciliation, brief reference of self harm, shepard and kaidan have a pre-ME1 service history</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:16:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,736</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26958535</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaps55/pseuds/swaps55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, to find the way back you just need room to breathe. Or a quiet moment to work on your biotic techniques. </p><p><i>Kaidan thought he’d hallucinated the incident on Mars. It had to be something his addled brain cobbled together in the aftermath of having his head crushed against a bulkhead. Shepard may have always been unpredictable under live fire, but he’d never tried to use </i>himself <i>as a mass-accelerated object. </i></p><p><i>No one’s </i>that<i> insane.</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Opus - The Multiverse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2006281</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>114</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Way Back</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wanted to write about biotics, and this happened.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>I hold my breath</em><br/>
<em>Fear is gripping me and I can't shake it off</em><br/>
<em>But relief, it knocks me over when you talk</em><br/>
<em>It's all that I need</em>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0PBsk8IEmzqCjIyRvP1v7m?si=rUyMjFSQQ9OcSvUvr4unQg">x</a>
</p><p>
  <strong>The Way Back</strong>
</p><p>Maybe they’re just destined for disaster.</p><p>Hard not to think that after Horizon. Mars. The standoff on the Citadel.</p><p>When Kaidan came back on board the <em>Normandy </em>he thought maybe they’d finally get some air to breathe, and find a way to take the step Shepard hadn’t made three years ago into an escape pod.</p><p>And then came the distress call from Gellix.</p><p>Of course it was Cerberus. Ex-Cerberus or not hardly seemed to matter when Gavin Archer was one of the people asking for help.</p><p>The look on Shepard’s face when Kaidan laid Archer out on the floor with a fist is not one he’s seen before, at least not directed at him. Surprise. Disappointment.</p><p><em>You don’t know,</em> Kaidan had wanted to say. <em>You weren’t there</em>. <em>You didn’t see</em>.</p><p>There was a time when Kaidan would have told Shepard everything about what happened on Aite. About the David and the geth, and how seeing a human being strung up on a dais and plugged in like he was nothing more than an OSD had cut him to the bone in ways he didn’t think he could be cut. <em>I was like David once</em>, he would have told him, while trying not to think about Vyrnnus’ broken neck. <em>I was worth more as a tool than I was as a person.</em></p><p>But that was before. Before Alchera. Before Horizon and that damned Cerberus logo affixed to Shepard’s chest. Before Mars.</p><p>Before, he never would have needed to tell Shepard, because Shepard would have been there and seen it for himself.</p><p>But this isn’t before. This is <em>now</em>, and the middle of an evacuation while under fire from some still <em>rather</em> committed Cerberus forces certainly isn’t the place to unpack that baggage.</p><p>That’s when the other shoe drops.</p><p>Kaidan thought he’d hallucinated the incident on Mars. It had to be something his addled brain cobbled together in the aftermath of having his head crushed against a bulkhead. Shepard may have always been unpredictable under live fire, but he’d never tried to use <em>himself</em> as a mass-accelerated object.</p><p>No one’s <em>that </em>insane.</p><p>So when the laser dot from a Cerberus sniper finds Kaidan’s head out on the landing pad during the evacuation he expects a bullet between the eyes, not the turbulent heave of the gravity well hitting him like a kick to the solar plexus. One second Shepard is beside him, the next he bolts at a dead sprint, corona snarling like a fire inhaling fresh oxygen. And then he’s a streak of light.</p><p>What the <em>fuck?</em></p><p>Kaidan gapes, too stunned to react. The red dot jerks right, a cry erupting from behind a bollard as a mass-accelerated <em>human being</em> barrels down on the hapless sniper. Shepard collides with her as he skids to a halt, shoulder checking her to the ground. One swift boom of his shotgun reduces her to a lifeless heap. He spins on his heel and stalks towards the shuttle without a backward glance.</p><p>Kaidan exhales, the hairs on his arms still standing on end, the remnants of one of the most powerful – and <em>reckless - </em>biotic displays he’s ever seen still crackling under his skin. What the ever-loving <em>fuck?</em></p><p>Garrus shakes his head as he joins Shepard on the shuttle. Clearly the turian has seen this before. Clearly what had happened on Mars <em>wasn’t</em> a hallucination.</p><p>Kaidan takes a good, hard look at Dr. Cole when he boards the shuttle, and an even harder one at Gavin Archer, who immediately turns away, jaw already discolored and swollen. But Kaidan avoids Shepard, who is all too happy to return the favor.</p><p>What the hell had Cerberus <em>done</em> to him?</p><p>~</p><p>Shepard disappears as soon as the shuttle docks. It’s just as well. Between the landing pad incident and Gavin Archer’s broken jaw, Kaidan’s not in the best frame of mind to confront what happened, either.</p><p>A rock settles in his stomach at how easy it’s gotten to walk away from each other. So much for room to breathe.</p><p>He thought coming back to the <em>Normandy</em> would give them a chance to see what, if anything, they still have left. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe part of him <em>wants</em> to be wrong, because the only thing worse than losing Shepard once would be giving into his gravitational pull only to lose him again.</p><p>And after that display on the landing pad, it’s becoming uncomfortably clear how little concern Shepard has for coming back alive.</p><p>He’d altered his own <em>mass, </em>to become a human battering ram.</p><p>Dammit, <em>why</em> would he think turning his body into a mass-accelerated object would <em>ever</em> be the answer to a problem? The sheer inefficiency of it is one thing, but the complexity of managing the shifts in mass with such limited – and <em>variable – </em>velocity would have to be outrageous. And <em>dangerous.</em></p><p>Kaidan racks his rifle and shoves his gear in a locker and winds up sharing an elevator with Garrus up to the crew deck.</p><p>More awkward silence. It’s going around in spades. Garrus was so easy to talk to, before. But these days Kaidan has no idea where they stand. He’s as protective of Shepard as Kaidan used to be. <em>So why didn’t he stop this?</em></p><p>Kaidan thunks the back of his head against the elevator. “What the hell was that down there?”</p><p>The turian’s mandibles pull tight to his jaw. “Do you mean you? Or him?”</p><p>It’s a fair fucking question, whether Kaidan wants to admit it or not. He sighs. “He could have killed himself, Garrus.”</p><p>Kaidan isn’t as good as Shepard is at reading turian expressions. But he sure doesn’t like what he sees. Garrus hums and shuffles his feet. “That’s something you need to ask him.”</p><p>Garrus is right. Three years ago it would have been easy, too.</p><p>~</p><p>Kaidan doesn’t say much during dinner that evening. Vega, Cortez and Garrus do a little good-natured jawing. Joker sits as far away from Kaidan as possible. Liara picks at her food while staring morosely at a datapad, before getting up abruptly and going to her quarters. Traynor takes her place, but silences the whole table when she connects the dots to Horizon and eagerly asks him how he enjoyed his time there.</p><p>A few years ago he would have forced a smile, said he liked it just fine and changed the subject. But today he’d helped Cerberus, broken Gavin Archer’s jaw, watched the man he’d mourned for two years risk his life for a stupid stunt, and if Joker keeps looking at him like he’s a sludge stain on the deckplates he really might lose it.</p><p>So he excuses himself and disposes of his tray, then takes the elevator down to the cargo bay.</p><p>In his hasty efforts to stow his gear he hadn’t cleaned it. With Cortez and Vega on the crew deck, chances are the armory will be quiet. Aiding Cerberus, even <em>ex-</em>Cerberus, after spending years doing everything in his power to stop them is still something he needs to process, and he wants to do it alone.</p><p>But the cargo bay isn’t empty.</p><p>Shepard’s aura stands the hairs on Kaidan’s arms on end the moment the elevator door opens. It’s taken time to get used to how different that aura feels. Not like the one he remembers, but somehow, still <em>Shepard</em> in a way he can’t define. He swallows and looks to his left, where Shepard kneels in front of a gun rack, examining his Piranha with a critical eye.</p><p>Kaidan almost turns back, but no doubt Shepard felt him, too. Sneaking out without saying anything would make a bigger statement than sticking around and working through…whatever this is.</p><p>Not knowing <em>how</em> to talk to Shepard is almost worse than not talking to him at all.</p><p>“Hey,” Kaidan says after a moment.</p><p>“Hey,” Shepard replies, rocking back on his heels to look up at him.</p><p>Kaidan’s chest tightens a little. He wonders if Shepard misses the ‘<em>you’</em> as much as he does.</p><p>Shepard observes him with that directed energy stare. He knows full well what follows it, so it takes him off guard when Shepard pulls his punch.</p><p>“You did good down there,” he says, getting to his feet and wiping his hands on his thighs. “And you thought you’d be rusty.”</p><p>Kaidan’s pretty sure that decking one of the people they’re supposed to be rescuing doesn’t qualify as a job well done, and for Shepard not to say so is a little like watching the sun come up green. His brow creases. “I was still rusty enough not to notice the target painted on my head until it was almost too late.”</p><p>Shepard may be pulling his punches, but Kaidan’s not pulling his.</p><p>Shepard focuses rather intently on the gun rack, running a hand over the cowl of a Lancer rifle. Kaidan’s Lancer. “Yeah, well. Happens to all of us. That’s why we’re a team.”</p><p><em>We’re not a team if I have no idea what you’re capable of.</em> Different implant. Different aura. Different abilities. They’d known each other so well, once. Would it feel the same if Kaidan kissed him? Or would that feel different, too?</p><p>He shouldn’t wonder.</p><p>But he does.</p><p>Shepard lifts a Carnifex off its rack, lays it on the weapons’ bench and starts taking it apart. Old habit, one he’s had since Kaidan first met him. He’ll disassemble and reassemble that weapon three or four times just to keep his hands busy. The familiarity of it in the middle of so much uncertainty puts an ache deep in Kaidan’s chest.</p><p>He finds his Lancer and joins Shepard by the weapon’s bench. This close, that unfamiliar aura whispers across his skin. He swallows. It’s a sensation he hasn’t felt in so long.</p><p>Why can’t this be easy?</p><p>“If we really are a team, I think I need to know what that stunt was back on the landing pad,” he says.</p><p>Shepard snorts, but doesn’t take his eyes off the ammo block in his hand. “You mean where I saved your life? That stunt?”</p><p>Kaidan sighs and puts a hand to his forehead. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll go. Okay?”</p><p>Shepard’s shoulders tighten, then sag a little. He sets the ammo block down and turns his attention to the barrel extension. “It’s…something I learned while I was with Cerberus.”</p><p>“Someone <em>taught</em> you that.”</p><p>“Not…exactly. I ended up spending some time on Tuchanka to help a friend, and one of the shamans gave me the idea. Helped me develop it.”</p><p>“The idea to…change your own mass,” Kaidan surmises as he begins disassembling the Lancer. “Make <em>yourself</em> a weapon.”</p><p>He shrugs a shoulder. “In my defense, it started as more of an act of utility to get in CQC range without getting shot. First time I accidentally plowed into someone gave it, uh. A new dimension.”</p><p>Kaidan’s going to gloss that one over for now. Instead he sets aside the cowl of his rifle and removes the heat sink. “So how does it work? Accelerate on foot, then reduce mass?”</p><p>“More or less. Velocity is limited, but then again you pick up too much speed and it ends poorly. Defeats the purpose if you break your own bones, and not the target’s.”</p><p>Kaidan grimaces, focusing on the kinetic coil. “And how the hell do you stop?”</p><p>“Put everything I’ve got into a barrier, and then increase my own mass as much as I dare.”</p><p>Somehow, Kaidan had convinced himself the explanation couldn’t possibly be as ludicrous as he thought it would be. Hell, the focus it would take to maintain a barrier that powerful <em>and </em>adjust mass both up and down at the right times is mind-blowing. And so unbelievably dangerous he can barely wrap his head around it.</p><p>“<em>Why?</em>” Kaidan exclaims, abandoning the rifle. “You have a <em>gun,</em> Shepard, and it shoots mass-accelerated projectiles a hell of a lot more efficiently than you can shoot <em>yourself</em>. That was a <em>titanic </em>amount of energy you put out. How in the hell do you justify the cost of that on your own body?”</p><p>“Because it saved your life,” he snaps, dropping the barrel extension onto the bench with a clatter. “She had <em>your</em> head in her crosshairs, and I put her the fuck down. So yeah, it was worth the cost.”</p><p>Kaidan falls silent.</p><p>Shepard shoots him a reproachful look. “You know, I didn’t miss your fucking lectures.”</p><p>Kaidan holds his gaze, retort right on the tip of his tongue. Shepard shouldn’t <em>need </em>a lecture to know that fucking with his own mass as a combat tactic was reckless, stupid, and above all, <em>unnecessary</em>. But he did need one. And someone willing to get in his way long enough to do it.</p><p>Wasn’t that part of what had always made them so good together? Shepard charging into a china shop like a bull, with Kaidan standing at the door waving his arms? Shepard would run through him as often as he stopped or swerved, but no matter how it ended Kaidan was there to help him pick up the pieces.</p><p>He softens. “Yeah, well, I did miss what a complete idiot you are sometimes. You could have, just, I don’t know. Knocked me to the ground. Or knocked <em>her</em> to the ground. Using her <em>own </em>mass.”</p><p>Shepard’s brow furrows and he opens his mouth to protest before he sighs in defeat. “Yeah. Ok. That probably would have worked, too.”</p><p>Kaidan’s smile deepens. “You always did prefer theatrics out in the field.”</p><p>“<em>Me?</em>” Shepard huffs and pokes at the pieces of the Carnifex, chin low to hide his own smile. “Okay, maybe I occasionally enjoy a small flair for the dramatic.”</p><p>“Small. You call turning yourself into the most impractical mass-accelerated weapon I could conceive of <em>small</em>.”</p><p>Shepard’s smile turns into a smirk. “Say whatever you want. But just imagine being that sniper getting an eyeful of me coming right at her. That’s the kind of fear of god she’s not going to forget anytime soon.”</p><p>“You put a shotgun round point blank into her head. She forgot it pretty quick.”</p><p>He puts a hand to his mouth to staunch a chuckle. The chagrined look on his face is so disarming Kaidan’s stomach flips. Just like that, everything feels so…<em>normal.</em> So much has changed between them. Other things…haven’t.</p><p>“What happens when you hit something?” he asks, not sure if he’s desperately curious about the answer or dreading it.</p><p>Shepard makes a face. “That’s come with some…trial and error. So have the mass adjustments. Have to make myself heavy enough to slow down, but not so heavy I create more force than I can handle.”</p><p>Kaidan crosses his arms. “How bad?”</p><p>“Fractured my sternum a couple of times. Broke a rib here and there. Busted clavicle.” He squints, deep in thought. “And a dislocated shoulder.”</p><p>“Jesus, Sam.”</p><p>Kaidan puts a hand to his forehead and paces back and forth between the weapons bench and the gun rack. He makes the circuit twice before realizing Shepard hasn’t spoken. Kaidan finds his gaze, expecting irritation, aggravation. After all, that’s what they do now, isn’t it? Take a few steps back towards each other, then sprint the other direction.</p><p>Instead the corner of Shepard’s mouth twitches in a wistful half-smile. “You haven’t called me that in a long time.”</p><p>Kaidan swallows over the sudden lump in his throat. After three years of not saying Sam’s name out loud, it had slipped out so easily. “No. I guess I haven’t.”</p><p>Shepard’s smile twists. “Lot’s changed, hasn’t it?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Kaidan shifts his weight. “You, uh. Haven’t asked me about Gavin Archer.”</p><p>“You mean about why you laid an unarmed refugee out on the floor?”</p><p>Kaidan runs a self-conscious hand through his hair. “Thanks for making it sound even worse.”</p><p>Shepard turns back to his disassembled Carnifex. “I know why you did it.”</p><p>“You do?” Kaidan asks with a frown.</p><p>“Liara sent me the Overlord mission report before I hit the Omega 4. And I met David Archer when we evac’d Grissom Academy.”</p><p>Kaidan’s gut clenches. “David—”</p><p>“He’s doing well,” Shepard assures him. “He remembers you. And he’s safe.”</p><p>Relief floods through him. “Thank you.”</p><p>Shepard reattaches the Carnifex’s kinetic coil. “You ask me, you deserve a medal for not killing Gavin Archer on the spot.”</p><p>Kaidan huffs. “Not what the look on your face said when I punched him.”</p><p>Shepard picks up the targeting VI housing, turns it over in his hands a few times before clicking it back into place. “I’m not used to looking at you and seeing…anger. You were always the one who insisted on seeing the good in people.”</p><p>“I…” He falters. “I hadn’t thought about it that way. That you’re not the only one who’s changed.”</p><p>There’s that wistful smile again. Kaidan’s heart aches.</p><p>“We were good at this once, you know,” Shepard says.</p><p>Kaidan nods. “I remember.”</p><p>He’d tried so hard to forget. <em>Needed</em> to forget, because not letting go had damn near crippled him. He’d spent two years trying not to feel, then another remembering how.</p><p>But with Shepard right here in front of him…god, he remembers.</p><p>Shepard sighs, abandons the half-assembled pistol and wanders to the side of the weapon’s bench, where he lowers himself to a seat on the ground with his back against the column of a support strut. There’s enough space beside him for Kaidan to join him. He wars with himself, then gives in.</p><p>This close, the scars on Shepard’s cheek stand out like fractured glass. In another life, he would have run his fingers over them, memorized the lines beneath his lips.</p><p>They sit, with nothing but the thrum of the engines through the deckplates and the occasional creak and rumble of metal alloys echoing through the cavernous cargo bay. The low hum of their intersecting biotic fields is a feeling rather than a sound, something that lives under their skin. Shepard’s aura may have changed, but the thrill it sends through Kaidan’s nerves hasn’t.</p><p>“My aura’s different,” Shepard says. “Isn’t it.”</p><p>Kaidan shifts in surprise, heart beating a little faster. “Yeah.”</p><p>He nods. “Made sense, once I thought about it. Explained a lot.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>He pulls his knees closer to his chest. “Seeing you on Horizon, I thought…if anyone would believe it was really me, you would. Because you’d <em>feel</em> it. But you didn’t. You looked at me like I was a stranger, and you’ve never done that. Ever. Not even the day we met, when I <em>was</em> a stranger.”</p><p>If only Horizon had gone differently. If only so many things had gone differently.</p><p>“Shepard…I’m sorry.” He’s not really sure what he’s apologizing for. Everything, maybe.</p><p>He shakes his head. “Not your fault. Not really a protocol for coming back from the dead. In your shoes I would have done the same.”</p><p>“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”</p><p>“No. I suppose it doesn’t.” He offers a fragile smile. “Look, I know it’s messy, but…I’m glad you’re here. There were days…I would have given anything just to be able to talk to you. Everything was so fucked up.” He heaves a sigh. “I guess you know better than I do how that feels.”</p><p>Kaidan swallows. He never wants Shepard to know what it feels like to want something you can never have again. Or how dangerous it feels to have a second chance.</p><p>But they <em>do </em>have a second chance.</p><p>“I’m here now,” Kaidan says.</p><p>Shepard nods and looks down at his hands. The gravity well flexes along with his fingers, another of the many ways he fidgets. Since Shepard died the space around Kaidan always felt so still. “It was a way to have some control.”</p><p>“What was?”</p><p>“The…thing on the landing pad. The biotic charge.”</p><p>“Is that what you’re calling it?”</p><p>“That’s what Garrus calls it. Jack calls it a biotic fuck up.”</p><p>Kaidan smiles.</p><p>Shepard runs a hand over his scalp. “I died with an L.2v implant, woke up with an L.5n. First time I tried to use a mnemonic it didn’t <em>work</em>. They woke me up in the middle of a firefight, put a gun in my hand and sent me on my way. I had to re-learn biotics on the fly.”</p><p>A knot grows in Kaidan’s stomach. “You woke up…under fire? And they sent you out to <em>fight?</em>”</p><p>“I know what I am, Kaidan. They didn’t spend all those credits to bring me back from the dead so I could smile at a camera.”</p><p>“You’re a human being,” Kaidan argues, anger creeping into his voice. “Not a weapon.”</p><p>He laughs, and it is not a pleasant sound. “Am I, at this point? They fused my skeleton with synthetic weave so it wouldn’t break, grew microfibers into my muscles so they wouldn’t tear. They even did something to reinforce my skin. I sat at my desk one night with a knife and started cutting just to see how much pressure it took to actually bleed.”</p><p>“Yes.” Kaidan reaches over and puts a hand on Shepard’s arm, then waits until Shepard’s gaze shifts from the hand to Kaidan’s face. This is something Shepard needs to hear, and understand. “<em>Yes</em>.”</p><p>Shepard’s Adam’s apple jumps. Kaidan lets him go, hand settling back in his lap. Shepard’s eyes track the movement.</p><p>“Fucking with my own mass started as a way to just…figure myself back out,” he says. “The implant was different, the amp was different, my <em>body</em> was different. I wanted something to feel like it was still <em>mine</em>. I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly in a rational headspace at the time. Then I fucked up and ran <em>into</em> a merc, and I started wondering what my limits were. How far I could push it before…”</p><p>“Before you’d break,” Kaidan murmurs. <em>Sam.</em></p><p>He nods. “Yeah. You, uh, do not want to know how much force I had to generate to break my sternum.”</p><p>Kaidan shudders. No. He doesn’t. “And no one tried to stop you.”</p><p>“Oh, of <em>course</em> they tried. I thought Lawson’s head was going to explode. This asshole she spent two years of her life resurrecting kept running her handiwork through a meat grinder just for kicks. But you underestimate my ability to tell people to fuck off.”</p><p>“I don’t underestimate it,” Kaidan mutters. “I’ve just seen too much of your bullshit to be impressed.”</p><p>Shepard chuckles. “Yeah. You sure have.”</p><p>What worries him is knowing that the more Shepard needs someone to pull him back from the edge, the more vehemently he cuts himself off from anyone offering a hand. Kaidan had learned how to take a few blows without losing his grip.</p><p>Just how close had Shepard been to that edge, if he’d bullied his crew into letting him literally break his own bones?</p><p>He can’t think about it.</p><p>“Pretty fucking impressive though, right?” Shepard asks with a hopeful note in his voice.</p><p>“It was…a hell of a sight,” Kaidan agrees, reluctantly. He shifts his back against the support. “You do see the irony, though, don’t you?”</p><p>Shepard raises an eyebrow. “Not really, no.”</p><p>“I’ve been begging you for <em>years</em> to learn better discipline. While you admittedly chose a completely insane way to do it…you finally <em>did</em>. I can’t even imagine the kind of focus it takes to shift your own mass around like that.”</p><p>A small smile curves Shepard’s lips. “Your mistake was expecting motor control. No motor control needed to be a human pinball.”</p><p>Kaidan snorts back a laugh. He doesn’t even notice he’s rested a hand on Shepard’s thigh until Shepard covers it with his own. Patterns. Old habits. As natural as breathing. Isn’t this how they’d fallen together in the first place? <em>There have never been lines when it comes to us</em>, Shepard had told him once, in that other lifetime.</p><p>Kaidan wets his lips. “Most amazing biotic display I’ve ever seen, and it was a glorified shoulder check.”</p><p>“Preceded by the fear of <em>god,</em>” Shepard reminds him.</p><p>Kaidan raises an eyebrow. “You want to see what brute force can really do with a little motor control? Come here, I’ll show you.” He climbs to his feet with a grunt and offers Shepard a hand. Shepard gazes at him before taking it. Kaidan pulls him up, pulse quickening when they wind up nose to nose and neither of them let go.</p><p>“Your hands are still cold,” Shepard says, gaze flicking to Kaidan’s lips.</p><p>“Yeah,” Kaidan manages. “Some things don’t change, I guess.”</p><p>“Some things,” Shepard murmurs. Then swallows. “So what’s this trick you wanted to show me?”</p><p>“Right,” Kaidan says, putting space between them. “Um. Let’s find some harmless object to torture.”</p><p>Shepard grabs an ammo block off the weapon’s bench and hands it to him.</p><p>“Right. Perfect.” Kaidan tosses it onto the floor and reaches into the gravity well. Dark energy roils along his arm, soft, smooth, familiar. He tries to imagine what Shepard must have felt like that first time he’d done this and gotten nothing but stillness. <em>They brought him back from the dead and didn’t even wait for him to get out of bed before putting a gun in his hand.</em> The coil of energy gathering in his palm seethes right along with his anger. He takes a deep breath, then moves his fingers and settles a mass-reduced field around the ammo block.</p><p>Shepard stands beside him as he turns his palm up and raises it into the air, nerves singing when their fields intersect.</p><p>Oh, how he’d missed that feeling.</p><p>“Telekinesis,” Shepard observes. “Very impressive.”</p><p>Kaidan rolls his eyes, then twists his wrist and snaps it downward. The ammo block plummets. After it begins its descent he waves his fingers and shifts the field until the ammo block’s mass increases with a vengeance. It accelerates, hitting the deckplate with enough force the metal buckles.</p><p>“Shit,” Shepard says, blinking.</p><p>Kaidan smirks. “You were saying?”</p><p>Shepard puts a hand to his chin, examining the ammo block with a furrowed brow. The hairs on Kaidan’s arms stand on end as Shepard’s corona flickers to life. He extends an arm, snaring the ammo block in a skein of dark energy and tugging it free from its wedge in the floor until it floats upward.</p><p>His mnemonics are still the same. He always depended on moving his arms, while Kaidan’s come more from the wrist. Whatever he’d done to relearn, he’d relied on the same neuron patterns to do it.</p><p>It’s still him. Kaidan doesn’t doubt it, not anymore, but every time he sees another piece of the man he’d lost it feels like a revelation.</p><p>“Walk me through it,” Shepard says.</p><p>“The concept’s not that dissimilar from your stunt,” Kaidan says. “It’s spatial distortion, only with a lot more finesse. The trick is the timing. Needs to pick up enough velocity.”</p><p>“Then add back the mass,” Shepard surmises.</p><p>“Get it right and you can generate some pretty impressive force.”</p><p>“It felt like you were adding acceleration on top of the freefall,” Shepard says, eyes narrowed as he steps towards the ammo block, chewing the inside of his lip like he always does when he thinks.</p><p><em>God</em>, sometimes it’s like seeing a ghost. But it’s real.</p><p>“Yeah,” Kaidan says. “Well. I’m good at it.”</p><p>“I can see that.” Shepard looks over his shoulder, flashing him a smile that’s not Shepard at all – it’s <em>Sam</em> – and Kaidan’s heart nearly stops.</p><p>“Well, go on then,” Kaidan says when he finds his voice. “Try to impress me.”</p><p>“You put an awful lot of emphasis on ‘<em>try,’</em>” Shepard grumbles. He raises the ammo block higher, then whips it down. It bounces off the deckplate and skids to a stop.</p><p>Kaidan clucks his tongue. “Crawl before you can walk, Shepard. Shift the field, first. Just like you do to yourself. Work <em>with</em> gravity. Not against it.”</p><p>Shepard mutters under his breath, but lifts the block into the air once more. Kaidan closes his eyes as Shepard’s dark energy washes through his skin with a whisper of static. The whisper switches directions when Shepard inverts the field and shifts the block’s mass again, cutting a gentle swath through Kaidan’s nerves. When the block clatters to the ground he opens his eyes.</p><p>“I shifted the field, but not quick enough,” Shepard says, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “I got hung up on keeping it in the air.”</p><p>“Huh, almost like motor control is important.”</p><p>Shepard rolls his eyes. “I thought you were supposed to be a good teacher or something. Is this how you treat all your students?”</p><p>Kaidan smiles. “Just you.”</p><p>When he lifts the ammo block again, Kaidan comes up to stand beside him, this time watching carefully for the mnemonics, even though he knows Shepard’s nearly as well as he knows his own.</p><p>So much of Shepard he knows better than he knows himself. <em>Still, </em>after all this time without him. Shepard has a way of sticking with you, no matter how hard you try to let him go.</p><p>Two tries later, Shepard lets out a frustrated sigh. “Think I’m better at brute force without the motor control.”</p><p>Kaidan chuckles. “Boy, death hasn’t made you any more patient, has it? Come on, try again.”</p><p>Shepard gives him a skeptical look, but picks the block up once more. This time, Kaidan comes to his right side, standing just behind him and placing a guiding hand on Shepard’s arm. “Follow my lead.”</p><p>“Um.”</p><p>“Just focus.”</p><p>Shepard grunts. “Suddenly a little unclear what I’m focusing on.”</p><p>“The <em>block</em>, Sam,” Kaidan says with a soft smile.</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>The breath stills in Kaidan’s throat as Shepard’s field hums, lighting up his nervous system. A static shock passes between them, strong enough to spark.</p><p>When he raises his arm, Kaidan’s hand goes with him.</p><p>Kaidan concentrates on the block, fighting the instinct to call his own corona. Using Shepard’s mnemonics is a hell of a lot easier to do in theory than it is in practice – every carefully, painstakingly ingrained lesson he’s taught his body demands he put the motion in his wrist. Maybe he’d gotten a little cocky. Focusing isn’t as easy as he’d made it sound.</p><p>“When I give the word, let it go,” Kaidan murmurs. “Then follow me.”</p><p>Shepard nods, eyes flicking to Kaidan before refocusing on the block.</p><p>“Ready?”</p><p>“Ready.”</p><p>“Now.”</p><p>Shepard releases the block. Kaidan lowers his arm, measured and steady – even the quickness of the mnemonic affects the field – and Shepard follows. The gravity well churns as the field shifts, and the block picks up a little speed before it thunks against the floor.</p><p>Shepard exhales, corona guttering out. The dissipating energy leaves Kaidan a little lightheaded.</p><p>“See?” he says. “Better.”</p><p>“A little,” Shepard agrees, turning his head towards Kaidan. This time it’s Kaidan’s gaze that drifts to Shepard’s mouth, close, so <em>close, </em>and lingers a little too long.</p><p>It was a lifetime ago. And yet still right in front of him.</p><p>“Now who’s unfocused?” Shepard says softly.</p><p>Kaidan’s corona blooms, tendrils snapping around them both as he lifts the ammo block, flicks his wrist, and slams it down to the floor, all without taking his eyes off Shepard. “Still you.”</p><p>He expects a smile. A smirk. Instead, Shepard leans fractionally closer, hesitates, <em>god </em>all they’ve done since Cerberus brought him back is overthink and second guess, then grazes Kaidan's lips with his own. It’s brief, the sensation little more than an echo of <em>then </em>bleeding into <em>now</em>.</p><p>Kaidan’s breath comes quicker.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Shepard stammers. “I—”</p><p>Kaidan swallows the rest of his words with his mouth, heart pounding so loud Shepard has to hear it.</p><p>Shepard inhales sharply, wrapping his arms around Kaidan, fingers twisting the fabric of his fatigues, melting into him like the past three years don’t exist.</p><p>But they do exist. For Kaidan they will always exist, a black hole too easy to get lost in and never find his way out of. He’s been there. He never wants to go back. So Kaidan clings to him, tight, because even though it’s <em>him, </em>real and whole, <em>what if</em> won’t stop tugging at the back of his mind. <em>What if I lose him again? What if this is still a dream I have to wake up from?</em></p><p>“Sam,” he murmurs when they part. “<em>Sam.” </em>Saying it out loud is like finally finding his way home after three years of fumbling in the dark.</p><p>Shepard folds Kaidan into his chest, hand sliding up to trap the back of his head.</p><p>“You’re real,” Kaidan says, gripping the fabric of Shepard’s fatigues tight in his fingers. “You’re <em>here.</em> I don’t…I <em>can’t—”</em>  </p><p>“I’m right here,” Shepard whispers. “I’m <em>here</em>. Kaidan.”</p><p>“You’re not a weapon<em>,</em>” Kaidan tells him, hoarse. “You never were. You were <em>mine.</em> And I <em>lost you</em>.<em>”</em></p><p>Shepard strengthens his hold, as though Kaidan could slip right through his fingers if he doesn’t hold on tight<em>. </em>“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for all of it. We’ll figure it out. I’ll do anything to figure it out. But I need you. I need <em>you</em>. Please.”</p><p>Kaidan closes his eyes, resting in the crook of Shepard’s shoulder. “I can’t lose you again.”</p><p>Shepard pulls away and catches Kaidan’s chin between his fingers. “No more biotic fuck ups. Swear.” He scrunches his brow. “Ok, I might…still use it to get around. But no more using myself as a weapon.”</p><p>Kaidan rests his forehead against Shepard’s, the sound that comes out of his throat a mix of laughter and relief. “Wouldn’t be you without something insane out there.”</p><p>Shepard’s expression turns solemn. “I know we still have a lot to sort through. A lot’s changed. We’ve <em>both</em> changed. But I mean it. I’ll do whatever it takes.”</p><p>“Not everything’s changed,” Kaidan says softly.</p><p>Kaidan draws Shepard back to him, reveling at how easily some things come back, when you just give them time to breathe.</p><p>He’s spent so much time trying to escape <em>before. </em>Leave it behind, find a way forward without the person he loved.</p><p>But this is <em>now</em>. And now…there’s hope.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading! You can find me on tumblr at swaps55.tumblr.com.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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